Clarisse Thorn

I write and speak about subcultures, sexuality, and new media.

A while back, I attended a workshop run by educator Sarah Sloane on the topic of BDSM and abuse. Sarah centered her workshop on a maxim that I have hereby stolen: “Start from a position of strength, and seek strength in the end.”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in terms of not just polyamory and BDSM, but sex in general. All types of sexuality are more pleasurable for some people, and less pleasurable for others; emotionally easier for some people, and more difficult for others. I have zero interest in telling other people how they “should” or “shouldn’t” deal with their sexuality, as long as what they’re doing is consensual. I want to say right now that nothing I’m about to write is intended to tell others how they “should” or “shouldn’t” do S&M; it’s just my own thoughts on how I might choose and process my experiences.

I can certainly consent to whatever, even if that thing is problematic or scary or difficult or complicated — I can consent. The thing is, if I want to get something amazing and positive out of my experiences, I think it’s good to start from a position of strength.

In some ways this is clear. For example, I think that being with a partner who genuinely wants me to have a good experience, who really cares about me, and who wants to see me again — that’s almost always a position of strength. Even if I have fairly intense, dark S&M encounters with that person, I can feel confident that he’ll treat me with respect; that he’ll give me space and lend me strength for emotional processing afterwards.

Also, knowing what I want is a position of strength; understanding how I feel is a position of strength. Being able to recognize my emotional difficulties, hiccups, triggers and landmines is a position of strength. Knowing for sure that I can call my safeword, if necessary, is a position of strength. On a physical level, I prefer to do S&M when my body is in good shape — when I’m well-rested and I’ve eaten healthy food. That, too, is a position of strength.

In some ways this can become murky. For example: I am rarely interested in one-night stands. There are a number of reasons for this, but one reason is that — especially as a woman — feeling like a “slut” can be scary, difficult cultural territory. And when I don’t feel good about myself, my interest in one-night stands is even lower — because I know that dealing with the difficult territory of “sluthood” will be harder with low self-esteem. If I’m feeling happy, strong, competent, valuable, and loved by the world … then one-night stands can easily be fun. If I doubt my worth, or if I doubt how much I deserve love … then one-night stands can be self-destructive.

The same goes for relationships with people who don’t care about me. If I’m sure that a guy has no emotional interest in me, then having sex with that guy can be a dangerous emotional proposition for me, and one that I need to feel strong for. This doesn’t always end up being true — I’ve definitely had sexual encounters that left me emotionally unaffected — but sometimes it’s hard to predict whether I’ll want more emotional investment from a given dude, so I try to keep it in mind for all encounters. (From a polyamorous perspective, I’ve noticed that less-emotional sex is often easier to handle when I’m already in a solid relationship with someone else.)

A couple I know in the local S&M community will sometimes have encounters that absolutely blow my mind, because they seem so difficult and so psychological. Here is an example: after the pair was married and child-free for many years, the wife realized that she might want children after all. This was a problem for her husband, who married her with the understanding that neither of them wanted kids. It became an ongoing discussion. Then the husband — who is also the sadistic, dominant partner — asked her if they could have an S&M encounter focused around the topic. She said it was okay.

So, as part of an S&M class that they taught together, the husband used her new feelings about children to rip into her: during the S&M encounter, he told her that she was probably too old to have children, that she’d waited too long. He added that she was too flighty for kids; that she’d be a bad mother. He added that he had always made it clear that he never wanted kids; that she was stupid for marrying someone who didn’t want kids, and that this problem was her own fault.

I was not present during this class, but I heard about it from some attendees, and it sounds like it was really intense. He used a genuine and difficult sore spot to put his wife through a psychological S&M wringer, with her consent.

These days, I feel very tempted towards encounters like that: encounters that can tear me apart on a deep level, using important weaknesses and insecurities. I’ve also received email from other people who want to arrange encounters like that, and who ask my advice. An obvious problem is that such a relationship could easily slip into abusive territory.

So I’ve thought about this a lot, and here’s my conclusion: those kind of intense psychological encounters obey the same maxim as other BDSM — “Start from a position of strength, and seek strength in the end.” I plan to write a more extensive post on BDSM vs. abuse soon, but I think this slogan makes a really good central concept.

Thus, before having such an intense psychological encounter, I should feel that the encounter will ultimately — through the pain and anxiety and tears — make me feel more supported, more capable, more powerful in the world. One angle on this is to trust my partner a great deal, and be sure that he wants the best for me — to be sure that in the end, he wants me to be as strong as I started … or stronger.

It’s possible that I might not need so much support from my partner, if I get support elsewhere in my life: perhaps from friends, perhaps from a Kink Aware therapist, perhaps from a great job or a solid diet and exercise plan, perhaps even from another partner. (Of course, if I were planning to get extensive emotional processing support from other people, then I would seek their consent beforehand.)

21 responses to “[slogan] Start From A Position of Strength”

This is really excellent – thank you. Something that breaks my heart whenever I pop into, say, the Submissive Women group on fetlife is how many people, but especially submissives, do not value their own worth, needs, or what they have to offer in relationship to their dominant partners.

The only thing that worries me about the “position of strength” wording is that I’ve seen several abuse victims who were reluctant to admit that they were being abused because they didn’t want to look “weak” – as so often abuse victims are seen as being weak.

But I agree with you that actual strength comes not from being invincible, but from understanding your own needs and limitations.

This makes a LOT of sense for me, especially when it comes to the “difficult and psychological” type of encounters. Here’s a story that’s a little embarassing, but that I’m going to tell anyway because hey, I’m being anonymous:

My boyfriend and I are both huge nerds. We do a lot of roleplay as each others’ favorite fictional characters. One time, I had him roleplay as a character who’s a serial killer.*
I have a serious, serious fear of death. Thinking about it at the wrong time can put me in the very bad, not fun at all kind of dark place.
I knew way ahead of time that he was going to roleplay this character, but I didn’t know until it was happening that he was going to do a scene in which he’d actually pretend to threaten my life and then pretend to kill me. Once I realized what was going on, I thought about safewording out. I wasn’t sure what it was going to do to me emotionally. But I trusted him (and the scene was going really, amazingly well otherwise, that helped too,) so I didn’t safeword. Not only was my fear not triggered more than a tiny bit, but it ended up being one of the best nights we’ve had together.
With anyone else, that scene might have been a disaster. If I didn’t trust him, I’d be worried that he would take it farther than I could handle. If he didn’t know about my fear, he might have accidentally done something that would be really bad for me emotionally. But because it was him, I knew (in that back-of-your-mind way, where you’re scared in the scene but know you’re fine if you step back into your rational thoughts) that I was safe. Being able to trust him was that position of strength I needed to explore some darker things.
(And if anyone’s curious about how he pretended to kill me – the scene itself was pretty intense for us, but at the end, he just picked up a random object and poked me in the chest with it. A really not-that-intense-at-all simulation of stabbing.)

*(Disclaimer: I probably don’t have to disclaim this, but just in case, I should probably say that I don’t, in any way, approve of killing people in real life, and that murder is a very, very bad thing.)

FeministSub — The only thing that worries me about the “position of strength” wording is that I’ve seen several abuse victims who were reluctant to admit that they were being abused because they didn’t want to look “weak” – as so often abuse victims are seen as being weak.

Agreed — I was really concerned about that while I wrote this post, and I tried to offset it as much as I could. Maybe I could have written it better, not sure. It’s a tricky topic.

One consideration with intense psychological sessions, which I think Anonymous touched on, is that it is useful to be mindful that your physical limits may change in response to the psychological elements of play. I know the one time I’ve really messed around with intense psychological stuff as a sub, I ended up safewording because the physical stuff got too intense, even though my partner was staying within the bounds of what usually was okay, physically.

Some of the hottest scenes I’ve ever participated in were based on some of Jim Duvall’s writing and revolved around stranger rape. Consent and negotiation done in writing and video with a third party facilitator not involved in the scene. The bottom wants to try being ‘raped’ in as realistic a way as possible. She negotiates the scene with a partner or friend who arranges the scene with a third party who the bottom doesn’t know at all. The scene happens within a date range of several weeks or months where the submissive knows it’s coming, but has no awareness of the specifics. The third party facilitator leaves a key or or some other access means and is available for after care as required.

My understanding (I’ve never spoken to Jim, I’ve just read posts attributed to him in a bunch of places) is that Jim Duvall has done this sort of scene a number of times successfully, and a few times with one or the other of the participants ending up with some level of medical care.

I was involved in one ‘gang rape’ scene and the planning and logstics of two other scenes covered in this way before my common sense kicked in and I considered how likely it was that someone was going to end up stabbed, or in jail when it all went wrong. The energy was amazing and the dynamic was mind blowingly intense. But even for someone who enjoys the edge – there was too much fear and risk around it. And the fear that broke me was what if the video consent had been edited. What if the written negotiation had been faked. What if someone found themselves involved in a way that they didn’t want to be. The fantasy was about being able to fight back and genuinely resist. What if they hadn’t called the safe word because they didn’t know it?

Reading about the scene with the psychological play around kids – I’m not sure I could top through that scene. I mean I can backhand someone across the room, kick their feet out when they try and get up, beat them bloody with a belt and sodomize them to close out the scene… if I know they’re getting off on it. I’m not sure I could put someone through that kind of psychological intensity. And I’m not sure how I feel about realizing that that might be a limit for me, and how I reconcile my comfort with physical abuse but not that.

[…] dynamic, I do not come out of these experiences feeling weaker. This, I think, is beyond important. Clarisse Thorn recently wrote about a useful slogan to address this concept: “start from a place of strength and seek a […]

One thing that I don’t think is answered in the piece is, “How do I recognise a position of strength?” (or, put another way, “What are the defining characteristics that distinguish a position of strength from one that is not a position of strength?”)

You gave several examples of when you feel you have a position of strength (although even those are qualified with “almost always” or similar), and you also give examples of when the line is more blurry. Without knowing what a position of strength looks like, how can I know I have one (and, similarly, how can I recognise when my partner does not have one, and I need to be careful or outright not continue?)

I cannot honestly say at the moment whether or not I have ever had a “position of strength” at the start of a BDSM scene or not, though certainly many of the characteristics you mention were in place and on the surface it looked right all the way.

@Scootah — I’m not sure I could put someone through that kind of psychological intensity. And I’m not sure how I feel about realizing that that might be a limit for me, and how I reconcile my comfort with physical abuse but not that.

It is an interesting line. Certainly, for me, when I originally got into SM, I was quite adamant that I had no interest in the psychological side of it, and was only in it for the physical sensation. Haha … I think it’s partly that my interests have genuinely evolved; and partly that I’ve just gotten really good at processing physical pain and so it’s nice to have outside factors that make my processing more interesting and challenging; and maybe partly that I felt like there was higher stigma around mental pain than physical pain — so it took longer for me to reconcile my interest in the former than the latter.

@Snowdrop — One thing that I don’t think is answered in the piece is, “How do I recognise a position of strength?” (or, put another way, “What are the defining characteristics that distinguish a position of strength from one that is not a position of strength?”)

Yup. That’s part of why I wanted feedback. Intuitively the maxim feels right to me, but it’s very hard to pin down what exactly a position of strength is. Maybe it is so broad/vague as to be useless. Not sure.

When I read the original quote I thought that returning to a position of strength was an integral part of a scene. It seems you see that as ideal, but that you’re maybe being more pragmatic? Like, you’d prefer if your partner supported you but you make sure you have other things that can fill the breach.

I think specifics are impossible here, but that the phrase functions best as a personal rallying cry than as a standard, an exhortation to find one’s own internal and completely subjective position of strength rather than to define it so that others can understand it.

In some ways this can become murky. For example: I am rarely interested in one-night stands. There are a number of reasons for this, but one reason is that — especially as a woman — feeling like a “slut” can be scary, difficult cultural territory. And when I don’t feel good about myself, my interest in one-night stands is even lower — because I know that dealing with the difficult territory of “sluthood” will be harder with low self-esteem. If I’m feeling happy, strong, competent, valuable, and loved by the world … then one-night stands can easily be fun. If I doubt my worth, or if I doubt how much I deserve love … then one-night stands can be self-destructive.

That doesn’t surprise me much. I know it (the courage/fear feeling and attitude) very well from myself doing things i feel i could be judged for. I don’t relate as much for the next paragraph (and i wonder why. i really should know, it seems important), but:

(From a polyamorous perspective, I’ve noticed that less-emotional sex is often easier to handle when I’m already in a solid relationship with someone else.)

It’s rather hard question, but i really wonder why. It makes sense, of course, but i’d be interested what you think about it.

And my, the SM encounter you mention… sounds indeed intense. I mean, i only can imagine it in the circumstance where i have utmost trust and i am madly in love with someone, for it to be a good experience. And even then i would be scared. I remember one such in my life, and it indeed seems that i would have to feel really good for this. Hm, which perhaps hints me to why i didn’t relate (anymore) to that second paragraph i mentioned.

About abuse… it’s dangerous in the sense that betrayal from such person is much worse than from someone you don’t care that much. Which reminds me that i often thought that the common perception of stranger-rape-in-a-dark-alley as a “real” one was paradoxical, because in many ways it produces lesser trauma than rape from a familiar person, contrary to the popular perception.

On a side note, that whole issue, i mean – the pleasure deriven from such encounters reminds me of the story of that journalist who visited Haiti and described her own problems with dealing with such encounters. I’m sure you remember it since you wrote about it on feministe (i’ve seen you became a moderator, btw). Which reminds me of our old short discussion about “BDSM as abuse”, i think under a post discussing it where i mentioned that it doesn’t matter whether BDSM derives from abuse, because it might be beneficial for handling the past (apart from the consensuality and autonomy and self-determination, which would trump it anyway). Uh, what i mean is that in a way i see BDSM – at least the one i’m mostly familiar* with – as dealing with terrain that’s pretty close to abusive, in a way that you mentioned. Not necessarily as a result of actual one, but for example, in the same way as dreams can deal with fears that are only fears about possible future and not repeat of the past.

Stll, i’m interested what you think about the support. It’s actually one of the things i value polyamory the most (apart from, you know, freedom), the possibility of really deep relationships with people (as i said, love and friendship blend into one for me)

Oh, you wanted input. So perhaps i can elaborate a bit. I’m victim of child abuse in the sense my mother beat me up and so i have very strong convictions about physical violence and anyone using it on children crosses moral event horizon for me (i’m not a pacifist, though), and i still sometimes have adrenaline pumping when i “dream” (visualize) about it. That’s why i was so angry in that feministe thread, btw. Anyway, the actual encounter was my and my lover slapping each other on cheeks, and it was incredible how good it was, and felt like unfreezing. Just like Kay and Gerda, if you know the fairy tale. And it was crucial that i was trusting and open to that person, without it that wouldn’t change my views on the topic (that violence depends on the context, as everything, even though intelectually i still disagree, i can’t deny what hapenned). I would either disregard it or be hurt and bottled it up (well, like i did years ago). Funny thing we were pretty drunk at the time.

Also, i can’t relate to that paragraph i mentioned, because it’s long time i have been in such relationship, and generally long time since i felt ‘strong’ enough.

*Apparently, i don’t consider my masochism as BDSM :D I mean, it’s pleasant, so it’s not painful, so it’s not masochism by definition, right? :D

@Feminist sub: yeah, i don’t like the words strenght and weakness myself. It’s hilarious how often the former is assumed to be virtue even in totally inapropriate circumstances, which would be most of our personal lives.

@Clarisse

Yup. That’s part of why I wanted feedback. Intuitively the maxim feels right to me, but it’s very hard to pin down what exactly a position of strength is. Maybe it is so broad/vague as to be useless. Not sure.

Oh i thought it was obvious. It’s when someone is sure of being accepted, accepts itself, and is also sure of its right to exist. It’s obviously subjective, intersubiective and objective, all at the same time.

[…] Start From a Position of Strength by Clarisse Thorn. I just love this woman’s view on sex as a psychological tool. I believe that sex is capable of being more powerful than something fun to do with another person, even though I’ve never experienced it personally, and I love others’ experiences with that. I think it’s amazing that sex has a power to repair and strengthen people’s psyches, because it’s such a new viewpoint for me. In this article specifically, Thorn writes about approaching sex as “starting from a position of strength, and working to end at a position of strength.” This means, which is an especially important distinction for BDSM, that you feel strong when you enter the situation (ie confident) and that you should feel just as if not stronger when you exit (common for BDSM, surviving emotional/physical tearing down). Just like when I posted a Thorn article before, I loved what she had to say but wasn’t so sure I had something to add, so why not share it? […]

“yeah, i don’t like the words strenght and weakness myself. It’s hilarious how often the former is assumed to be virtue even in totally inapropriate circumstances, which would be most of our personal lives.”

I like this. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately – how so many things, like many emotional responses, are seen as weakness when they’re really not. And, furthermore, how weakness is often seen as a character failing. People who are wronging others can be weak, true, but weakness is often what happens to a decent person when they’ve had more than they can personally take.

Ummm, I guess this is getting a bit off topic. Sorry for that. Just wanted to share my thoughts.

[…] on a fairly fundamental level. It’s all about how you enter the relationship – are you starting from a position of strength? – and how you treat, respect and love each other. Just because the roles are different doesn’t […]

As I was moved to say on my fb page yesterday (which covers the spiritual aspect of some such sweet strangenesses)
“The true ruler is really a servant-
-the true servant is a gentle ruler.”
Therefore explore and understand the deep and broad “ecosystem” of our strangenesses – and see how they link with submission and dominance at other levels.
The once servitude becomes ever more subtle, safe and rewarding. Especially as one frees up one’s definition of desire gratified and holds out for ever more precise and refined understanding and gratification.
This is the “Tao” of BDSM in my grovelling opinion. :-)

[…] concept I find really important in aftercare, and BDSM in general, is Clarisse Thorn’s maxim “Start from a position of strength, and seek strength afterward.” The gist of this motto is that BDSM is best when it makes you feel strong, validated, and good […]

About Clarisse

On the other hand, I also wrote a different book about the subculture of men who trade tips on how to seduce and manipulate women:

I give great lectures on my favorite topics. I've spoken at a huge variety of places — academic institutions like the University of Chicago; new media conventions like South By Southwest; museums like the Museum of Sex; and lots of others.

I established myself by creating this blog. I don't update the blog much anymore, but you can still read my archives. My best writing is available in my books, anyway.

I've lived in Swaziland, Greece, Chicago, and a lot of other places. I've worked in game design, public health, bookstores, and digital journalism. Now I live in San Francisco; I make my living as a media strategist, editor, and writer.